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sort-of-poem: riku (or, boy kisses girl in the world of The Onion)

This morning I awoke to the news that the velociraptor from Jurassic Park just died. Her name was Riku. The city is in shock. Last week Harry Connick, Jr. died in a piano fire. It was apparently self-inflicted. People are freaking out, but it already happened last year to Liberace.

We live in Boulder, Colorado, recently named the best city to raise abducted children. I’ve given up the habit of asking wayward second graders if they know where they are. I mean hey, I turned out all right.

I’m getting ready to see my girl, and I already lost sleep since I stayed up til four calming my cousin Blake. He’s gay, and terrified that he might actually believe in Jesus. The conversation ended with an agreement that he’s probably fucked. Especially since Jesus just returned to the NBA.

I’m getting ready to see my girl, and I’ve just been wanting to tell her I love her without worrying about a world of madness. There’s no reason I should be the most normal guy around. But I’m not going to get lost in the absurdity I was born in. I won’t let the newspaper change the tone of my day.

No matter that on the way to see my girl, there’s a march of afterbirthers protesting the president, demanding that he show proof of his placenta. I tell myself this is progress; a few years ago he was just some black guy asking the nation for change. And my girl, she loves it here, loves to point out every flying monkey, and I privately know she believes with all this shit, I will forget about the madness she bottles inside. She hates if I hold her trembling hand in public. I’ve learned not to kiss her belly until the lights are out. She hopes that her tears are mere background to the chaos outside.

But I, too, love it here. This is a world that in spite of itself shows me another way to kiss. When Riku the velociraptor died, we only grieved for the loss of a beauty unbelievable. When Harry Connick, Jr died from the piano fire, it was because he kept coming back to finish the song. It’s not going for broke when you live in a world like this. It’s taking everything you knew and offering it to the bonfire. Twenty years ago I was abducted and brought here, to Boulder, Colorado. I knew it was home when no one asked if this was where I belonged.